After Orlando, Irrelevant Solutions Dominate Discussion

Violence leads to parade of bad or useless policy proposals.

In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Orlando, our leaders have shown a talent for devising remedies that are clear, simple and irrelevant. One politician after another has stepped forward with remedies that would not actually have stopped or appreciably hindered Omar Mateen from carrying out his slaughter.

John McCain thinks it happened because the United States pulled out of Iraq. Our withdrawal led to the rise of the Islamic State, McCain said, which makes President Barack Obama's decisions "directly responsible" for the massacre.

McCain clearly doesn't know what "directly" means. But even accusing the administration of indirect responsibility would be far-fetched. Mateen proclaimed his allegiance to the Islamic State in a phone call during the attack, but he also mentioned his admiration for the Boston Marathon bombers, who were inspired by al-Qaida. In 2013, he said he was a member of Hezbollah.

These groups, by the way, are not allies but enemies of the Islamic State in the Syrian civil war. But Mateen apparently was willing to claim any radical Islamist group. If the Islamic State didn't exist, he would have managed to find inspiration in a different jihadi group.

Donald Trump took the opportunity to reiterate his proposal to ban Muslims from coming to the U.S., as well as anyone from countries with "a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies." Does that include visitors from Germany, where some of the 9/11 hijackers lived? Or Britain, home of shoe-bomber Richard Reid? How about France, which suffered a horrific attack in November?

In any case, Mateen was born in the U.S.—as was Syed Rizwan Farook, who carried out the attack last year in San Bernardino. Trump's ban wouldn't have affected them in the least. Imposing it today might (or might not) prevent mass shootings in 2047, but not in 2017.

Hillary Clinton interpreted the Orlando murders as proof of the need to ban the sale of "assault weapons" such as Mateen's Sig Sauer MCX. Her idea is beside the point for a couple of reasons. One is that 73 percent of mass shooters, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis, don't use such guns.

Another is that her ban wouldn't prevent the sale of other semi-automatic guns that are functionally indistinguishable from the weapon the shooter used. Even if assault weapons were forbidden, terrorists would have plenty of other firearms from which to choose.

Outlawing "assault weapons" would no more stop someone like Mateen than outlawing Ryder trucks would have stopped Timothy McVeigh from bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City.

How about banning high-capacity magazines, such as the 30-rounder Mateen used? He could have overcome that obstacle by bringing several 10-round magazines, which can be switched out in seconds. Or he could have brought more guns, besides the Glock handgun he had.

It's not impossible that restricting Mateen to a smaller magazine in his rifle would have made a difference, but it's unlikely. Over 20 years, Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck writes, the 2011 attack on Rep. Gabby Giffords is "the only known instance of a mass shooter using a semiautomatic firearm and detachable magazines in which the shooter was stopped by bystanders while the shooter may have been trying to reload such a magazine."

Clinton also proposed to forbid gun purchases by suspected terrorists. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., have proposed legislation barring sales to anyone on the FBI's terrorism watch list. But that hurdle wouldn't have stopped Mateen, who had been investigated twice by the FBI, cleared and taken off the list.

Supporters of the bill cite a study by the Government Accountability Office that found that 2,043 people on the terrorism watch list bought guns from licensed dealers in the past decade. You could take this as proof that it's too easy for terrorists to buy guns—or as proof that it's too easy for the government to classify you as a terrorist. How many of those buyers ever committed acts of terrorism? The GAO couldn't say, but if any did, the number was far fewer than 2,043.

Our leaders can do a lot of things about mass shootings in the wake of Orlando. But we shouldn't expect any of them to prevent the next one. You can give them credit for trying, but they fixate on imaginary solutions because nobody has a real one.

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The FBI needs to stop ‘luring’ people into terrorist plots. That kind of strategy is far more likely to incite someone to later violence than to uncover a radical within our midst. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Jo Cox killer was a victim of the same dynamic. Also teach your kids right and wrong, not “women should not be respected” or “Israel will be gone in a year or 2 anyway, God willing.”

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Mateen’s pop is the John Connor or terrorism. He knew the Taliban would come to be, so he sent himself back in time to move to America and breed a natural born son who would become radicalized towards a group that would come into being at the right time.

I think the Taliban grew out of the Mujahadeen, the Afghan resistance to the Russian invasion. It is essentially the militant arm of the Pashtoon tribe.

The west armed them…gave them all of those beautiful surplus Enfields and 303 ammo, which burns my ass. We also gave them SAMs to shoot down the Rusky helicopters. What a stupid fucking move. At the time my position was that we should have been supporting the Russians. They invaded Afghanistan to put a stop to the Jihadis they were having to deal with in Russia.

South Korea has barrels full of old surplus M1 carbines (from the US),never used,that they want to refurbish and sell here in the US,but Comrade Obama won’t allow it. That’s despite the same guns currently being sold under the US Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP),although that US supply is pretty much depleted. These are semi-auto carbines,not the select-fire automatics.

I will have to ask my buddy about that. He was there when they were a learnin’ to shoot Russian helicopters from the sky…… (They are ALL crazy fucks. Have been for generations. There is no such thing as “Militant Pashtuns”, there are just Afghans.)

Radical jihadists are just so fucking clever and diabolical. I mean, how else can you explain them beginning their infiltration of the West decades ago, naturalizing and becoming legal citizens, living a relatively law-abiding life, and then raising a vanishingly small percentage of their children to become radicals who commit a small number of random attacks? So many things had to go perfectly for that plan to work….from the rise of ISIS right when these kids are at the prime age to be radicalized, 9/11, the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. And they had to plan for all of it 30 years in advance!

And they got it all right! Because that is the magnitude of the threat we face.

Wrong. Trump’s policies are to reject immigration from countries with a history of terrorism against the US, like Afghanistan and Pakistan. But had we used that standard when the Mateens immigrated over to the US, we would not have blocked him from immigrating as, at the time, Afghanistan did not have a history of terrorism against the US.

But Mateen apparently was willing to claim any radical Islamist group. If the Islamic State didn’t exist, he would have managed to find inspiration in a different jihadi group.

He’d found inspiration from others, but perhaps not enough to wage an attack himself.

It is clear that the success of ISIS has emboldened Jihadis, and Mateen in particular. The reasonable inference is that the lack of ISIS as Jihadi inspiration would have made Mateen’s attack *less* likely.

Which sides are we talking about here? I see people on the left and the right who are trying to take away our second amendment rights (by saying we shouldn’t let people on secret lists buy guns, or at least delay the sales), though obviously the former are more numerous and the policies they propose are more extreme.

Still, it’s shameful when even the people who claim to support the second amendment advocate that the government violate it.

I see people on the left and the right who are trying to take away our second amendment rights

Oh, you can stop worrying about your silly “constitution”. Hillary is about to become president, and with that there will in all likelihood be a two vote swing on the supreme court.

With the senate voting to confirm the last two nominees – both of whom clearly stated their disdain for following the letter of the law when it comes to constitutional limitations on government power – you can’t even hope for a meaningful brake on this executive power.

No, the era of the court as a limit on government power is over. We are entering an era of “give the people what they want”, where “the people” is proxied by elected officials and “what they want” is more power.

But don’t worry too much…. they’ll toss us the occasional individual rights bone – whenever individual rights accidentally coincide with group constituency rights. So maybe we’ll get court ordered amnesty like we got court-ordered gay marriage. But the imperial presidency looks like it is here to stay – with 16 years of uninterrupted construction and two candidates who seem perfectly suited for further extension of the practice.

Exactly so. There’s no way secret government lists to deprive people of rights without due process would be used against Christians, conservatives, political “malcontents” like libertarians and dissenters. No one’s mad at them. Right? Right?

There’s no way secret government lists to deprive people of rights without due process would be used against Christians, conservatives, political “malcontents” like libertarians and dissenters. No one’s mad at them. Right? Right?

Well, except for the fact that we all know that the Orlando shooting was really the fault of right-wing conservative christian anti-gay republican NRA nuts. This isn’t really up for debate any more. Just head over to HuffPo for all the details.

The Feds are putting out transcripts (not audio) of the shooter’s 911 calls to demonstrate that he was inspired by right-wing republican hatred of gays. They’ve helpfully redacted all mentions of his allegiance to “extremist” Islamic groups like ISIL and such, just to make sure the public isn’t distracted from what is really important. As more evidence has been gathered, it becomes clear that he was not in fact “radicalized” and didn’t really follow an extremist Islamic ideology. Really, everyone knows this. We’ve always known this.

It seems like Matteen should have been locked up in a loony bin as a threat to himself or others.

From everything I’ve read about him he had violent tendencies, and was ready to unleash them on anybody who crossed his path. I’m not a huge fan of using commitments to lock up people, but once you you’ve raised the notice of the FBI of on two separate occasions, you’re probably doing things super wrong.

I’ll vote for the first politician who says, “Shit happens. In a country of 320,000,000 people, there’s going to be a few homicidal nuts. The scale of the problem is pretty damn small, and there’s really nothing we can do about it.”

We can always do better! Look at Australia, derpy doo! If you don’t think we need ‘common sense’ gun control then it means you like the ‘fact’ that we currently have no gun control whatsoever, derp derp! Right now anyone can buy an assault weapon as easily as they can buy a gallon of milk at the grocery store, herpaderp!

Clinton also proposed to forbid gun purchases by suspected terrorists. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., have proposed legislation barring sales to anyone on the FBI’s terrorism watch list. But that hurdle wouldn’t have stopped Mateen, who had been investigated twice by the FBI, cleared and taken off the list.

These ideas are so stupid even Chapman can figure out how dumb they are. The point of a “watch list” is to watch people. Watch lists are only effective, to the extent that they are, if the people on them don’t know that they are. If the person knows they are being watched, they will change their behavior and defeat the entire purpose of the watch list.

If people on watch lists want to buy guns, you want them doing it legally so that law enforcement knows about it and can perhaps watch them a bit closer. All banning them from buying guns or flying or anything else does is tip them off they are being watched and make it harder to find the actual terrorists on the list.

The ideas aren’t stupid. Not at all. You’re just looking at it from the wrong point of view. These ideas are very smart in that they give more power to government, rally voters behind politicians, and they criminals out of thin air. Meanwhile they do nothing to prevent future incidents, which is good because future incidents will be an opportunity to amass more government power, rally more voters, and create more criminals. From that point of view these ideas are brilliant.

Like “I’m keeping my eye on you!” from a mom to a kid at the park. While not doing anything to deter a determined terrorist, it might steer the terror-curious away from the darker parts of the alt-culture.

While not doing anything to deter a determined terrorist, it might steer the terror-curious away from the darker parts of the alt-culture.

Yet at the same time, the FBI seems to be encouraging many of the “terror curious” into going further into the “darker parts” and plotting attacks so that they can get caught. We seem to have a strategy of “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks” without any real underlying consistency or holistic evaluation.

At least one of the 9/11 hijackers was on a no fly list at the time. And, a lot of people who weren’t aren’t terrorists were / are on the list. How come at least in 3 recent incidents the DHS/FBI did actually look at the perpetrators and still cleared them? Boston, San Berdo, Orlando, all examples of how good our anti-terror system works…..

We are importing terrorists and then wondering why we have terrorism? Hmmmmm……..

Why did they cover up the Abu Sayaff connection with the Ok bombing? The 2 dipshits they pinned that on could not blow up a sex toy and yet had the knowledge to build an effective bomb to take out that building. No thanks.

Get that OK Highway patrol officer to come forward with his knowledge of that deal. The dipshits want to call it and this stuff “homegrown terrorism”. No, it’s the same silly shit we see overseas, brought here by bullshit immigration policies that think there is some reason for Arabs and others to be here?

Was there a big expeditionary push by Africans and Arabs we don’t know about? Someone besides the known actors made a big push into the Americas? Show me those big Arab sailing ships that crossed the Atlantic / Pacific and started colonies in the Americas…..?

Fuck these imbeciles that think all peoples should be everyone ’cause “reasons”.

Over 20 years, Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck writes, the 2011 attack on Rep. Gabby Giffords is “the only known instance of a mass shooter using a semiautomatic firearm and detachable magazines in which the shooter was stopped by bystanders while the shooter may have been trying to reload such a magazine.”

Unless maybe he wrote his report fresh in the last couple of months. Perhaps that’s the genesys of the 20 year cutoff. Anyway, if someone is around with the mindset to stop them, things can go differently. This guy was a real-life Jack Ryan. Except he didn’t jump on the hotline to Russia to circumvent a nuclear war.

Aside from the 20 year cutoff, there are two reasons why Gary Kleck didn’t include that guy.

The first is that Williamson doesn’t fit the (somewhat arbitrary) criteria of what constitutes a ‘mass shooter’, having only killed two people during his shooting incident. So the Chapel Hill incident and Williamson don’t show up on the Mother Jones list of mass shootings, which is where Kleck is likely to have gotten his incident list to work from.

The second reason Williamson isn’t included is that Kleck’s statement includes detachable magazines, and Williamson was using an M1 Garand, which has a fixed internal magazine.

Short of banning all guns – and this would take door-to-door SWAT teams, confiscation, and even then there would be a huge amount of illegal weapons out there – there is no solution to this type of atrocity. And such a ban would only make the terrorist resort to other methods.

Or perhaps we could deport all Muslims – no matter what generation they are. Ok, that won’t fly.

Or armed security is mandatory at all nightclubs or wherever the public congregates. Oh wait… Mateen did get in a shoot out with an armed off-duty police officer / security guard there. And then continued on with the killings.

Really there aren’t any easy solutions to this problem, nor any complex solutions that would work in all cases. The public seems to be clamoring for one, but whatever new law is put out there – it won’t work.

Australian man makes machine guns at home,sells them to gangs. (including suppressors,aka “silencers”.)

http://www.theage.com.au/artic…..99535.html Submachine-guns found in weapons factory. even in “strict gun control” Australia,there’s a couple hundred machine guns still unaccounted for,still in civilian hands. So AUS could still have mass murders. that they haven’t is more due to their cultural differences than their “gun control”.

What about maybe a life-affirming, non-mystical code of ethics based on the value of an existing individual’s right to live life without being threatened or coerced? Didn’t the Nathaniel Branden Institute teach something of the sort?

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I see a pretty consistent theme amongst most libertarian-leaning camps, and that is a general criticism of ANY proposed solution to mass shootings: “Nope, that won’t work. Nope, not that either. Still nope.”

So, you may be right in condemning the proposals above (I agree, this isn’t an immigration policy issue). But do you have _any_ suggestions to offer instead? Because a whole lotta “nope” isn’t going to cut it.

Statutory gun-free zones yes. You want to make a location ‘gun free’ by statute, those places need to have an honest to goodness security checkpoint.

The other laws that need changing is how places like MD and NJ basically have a no-issue policy towards carrying defensive firearms. The history of the other 40+ states with liberalized carry laws is that it cannot convincingly be demonstrated that ‘discretionary permitting’ is on the whole, any safer.

Anecdote: Its easy to get a gun into a ‘gun free zone’ if it doesn’t have a real honest to goodness security checkpoint.

Just this weekend I was at a race track and a guy entered the grandstands with a very openly displayed firearm. He walked past at least a good dozen employees at the track (including the security personell) if not more.

Now, this location isn’t prohibited by law, but the property owners do prohibit, but none of the dozen or so track employees he walked past appeared to have spotted him. I’m pretty sure it was someone in the grandstands that ratted him out because it was a good 10 minutes or more before someone asked him to take it to his car. (such prohibitions do not have force of law here, other than trespassing if you refuse to leave)

Incidentally, while its extremely uncommon in these parts (first time I’ve seen someone openly packing in the year I’ve lived in this state), his carrying did not put off the people around him. They kept on about their business despite its rarity.

there was one US courthouse with armed guards at a metal detector gate,where a guy walked up,shot the armed guards,then walked through the gates and went about shooting everyone he saw,until an armed plainclothes woman officer came out of a restroom and shot the guy.

but courthouses are one place where it makes sense to disarm all visitors. Jails and prisons are others. Not the US Post Office.

But do you have _any_ suggestions to offer instead? Because a whole lotta “nope” isn’t going to cut it.

Why not? What if there is no effective solution to the problem that doesn’t infringe upon our liberties? The only answer, then, is ‘deal with it’. People expect perfect safety, but it doesn’t exist. I’d rather be less safe and more free than the opposite, if there was such a dichotomy.

If you have an effective solution that respects our liberties, then by all means, put it forth. However, the mere fact that we can’t think of such a solution doesn’t mean that bad solutions are suddenly good. We shouldn’t just do anything simply to give the appearance that we’re doing something; that’s a waste of time, money, and possibly liberties.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We must all get used to the idea of becoming a socialist slave state, eliminating all constitutional protections and welcome all the benefits of being a totalitarian state like being disarmed, placed into re-education camps and working for our obvious betters in The State for free. You’ll see. We will thank our oppressors for these new and needed changes later.

that’s just a load of garbage. the guy wants to restrict gun rights to militias,license and register all guns,etc. He’s just another gungrabber.

if you really want to reduce gun violence,allow Constitutional Carry,and eliminate most “gun-free” zones. Next would be to drastically reduce single motherhood,that essentially raised a crop of ferals that commit lots of violence and crime. Lacking any father around,the mothers soon lose control when their kids become teenagers. Time to bring back the societal pressure against bastardy. Then get rid of the entitlement culture we have today.

You Jerks! This is unfair! Why are my ideas about nuking Mecca and banning the practice of Islam in America not included in this islamo appeasing article? I feel slighted 🙁 You attack John McCain, but not me? You Rhomites are real morons for forgetting me.

the Pulse killer first shot at bouncers at the door,then “exchanged gunfire” with the off-duty police officer working security,then entered the club and began shooting people inside. over 100 people were shot,in addition to the gunfire directed towards police and SWAT. That’s a LOT of ammo to be carrying,he had to have several 30 round mags,at least 10 of them,and that’s a lot of weight. But one of the other mass shooters had 41 10 round mags with him,carried in a “tactical vest” often mistaken for body armor. I am having a hard time accepting that the police officer/security “exchanged gunfire” with the killer before he entered the bar,but the officer apparently didn’t HIT the killer even ONE time. Appalling. Nobody has said just how far away the officer was when the shooting began.

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George Holy War Bush had to invade the Ottoman Empire, and the next thing you know there were three attacks on the Twin Towers–mohammedan fanatics in every case. Normal people realize that the “free exercise” of religion is protected by the First Amendment, but suicide-bombing isn’t. The Republican Party and the Islamic State both agree that the initiation of force is the free exercise of religion. Any move to identify brainwashed mohammedan terrorists would interfere with heroes “warriors for other people’s babies” like Robert Lewis Dear, the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooter. No way will the GOP allow such a miscarriage of justice.

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